Khush
Develops music applications such as LaDiDa, a reverse karaoke iPhone app that analyzes the user's voice and composes music to match.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
| - | investor | €0.0 | round |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
| investor | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Seed | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
| USD | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|
| Revenues | 0000 | 0000 |
| EBITDA | 0000 | 0000 |
| Profit | 0000 | 0000 |
| EV | 0000 | 0000 |
| EV / revenue | 00.0x | 00.0x |
| EV / EBITDA | 00.0x | 00.0x |
| R&D budget | 0000 | 0000 |
Source: Dealroom estimates
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Khush, founded in 2009 by the husband-and-wife duo Parag Chordia and Prerna Gupta, was a developer of intelligent music applications for mobile phones. The founders' backgrounds were deeply rooted in the intersection of music and technology; Chordia was a professor of computer music at Georgia Tech and director of their Music Intelligence lab, while Gupta held an economics degree from Stanford University. Chordia's academic work at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics and his PhD in ML+Music directly informed the company's technological direction.
The company's core business centered on creating mobile apps that made music creation accessible to everyone, regardless of musical talent. Khush developed applications that could analyze a user's voice and automatically compose matching background music, a concept they termed "reverse karaoke". Their product lineup included "LaDiDa," an app that would add a backing track to a user's singing, and "Songify," which famously turned spoken words into auto-tuned pop songs. These apps, available on iOS and Android, were offered as free downloads with options for in-app purchases of additional beats and styles. The applications gained significant popularity, with Songify reaching the number one spot in the iTunes store and a combined download count in the millions.
In a strategic move to consolidate talent and expand its user base in the competitive music app market, Khush was acquired by Smule in a cash-and-stock deal on December 1, 2011. The acquisition was seen as a merger of similar philosophies, as both companies aimed to democratize music creation. Following the acquisition, the Khush team remained in Atlanta, operating as an independent studio within Smule, and their popular apps were integrated with Smule's "Sonic Network" to allow for greater social sharing and collaboration. Prerna Gupta took on the role of Chief Product Officer at Smule, staying with the company until 2013, before she and Chordia went on to found other startups, including Hooked.
Keywords: mobile music apps, artificial intelligence, music creation, reverse karaoke, auto-tune, app developer, Songify, LaDiDa, Smule acquisition, entertainment software